(AP)

Don’t Pay USWNT Players JUST Because They’re Great

By becoming a model for fairness and equality, the U.S. Soccer Federation can help right a fundamental wrong.

andré carlisle
Published in
4 min readApr 2, 2016

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In the same way life and art can imitate one another in a manner which muddles a subject’s origin, sports as a microcosm of society can at times do the same. This allows sports to highlight societal and cultural problems in ways everyday life doesn’t plainly present. Money, of course — and lots of it — gives a sport power. But because this power is a side effect, it’s often given to those ill-equipped to use it.

Since the US Women’s National Team won its third World Cup last year, the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) has been ignoring nudges to improve its treatment of our nation’s best soccer team.

After being forced to play World Cup matches on turf — something unheard of for men’s squads — the USWNT were quickly thrust into a series of matches dubbed a victory tour. Here, go celebrate your athletic accomplishments by accomplishing more things athletically. Their “reward” for bringing glory, and money, to the USSF was to play four matches in ten days by traveling from Honolulu to San Antonio to Glendale and then New Orleans. The tour ended up only being three matches after the women refused to play on the turf at Aloha Stadium — after the field claimed the ACL of star midfielder Megan Rapinoe.

The rest of the tour went on as scheduled, and the money raised was funneled to the USSF once more. Three short months later they were back on the pitch to participate in U.S. Soccer’s inaugural She Believes Cup. This cycle, after winning a World Cup mind you, was solidification that the USSF views the women’s team as worthwhile only in servitude.

That whole sports-as-a-microcosm of society thing comes at you fast. And with the societal issue this points to now inescapably in sharp relief, it’s harder and harder to dismiss it without standing out as a caveman.

Soccer is the most popular global sport, and our women’s team is the best women’s team on the planet. Many USWNT players are household names, marketable, and possess talents that make them exponentially more fun to watch than their men’s counterpart. When they take the pitch, all of the things we desire of top-tier soccer are on display: Blazing pace, creativity, and imitable footwork. Not to mention clever-when-needed and dogged-when-needed defending, and successful take-ons.

Oh, and goals. Lots and lots of goals.

But arguing for equal pay because the USWNT currently kicks-ass is slightly off-center. If one day the squad begin to fall behind internationally, like, say, our current men’s team, it won’t mean they’re any less deserving of fair treatment and pay.

Then the issue at play won’t be as much financial as it is a battle against patriarchal constructs deeply rooted in our society. It’s common knowledge that women overall are paid less than men for the same job generally, but attempts to enact necessary changes continue to be stymied by flimsy, yet embedded rationalizations. Spotlighting the USWNT’s triumphs helps to reveal the frivolity of these arguments, thus necessitating a deeper dive. The removal of the team’s successes affirms that the existence of women’s soccer in our society is massively important.

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations’ ‘2014/15 High School Athletics Participation Survey’, 432,569 boys and 375,681 girls signed up for high school soccer. Of the top three participated-in girl’s team sports (volleyball, basketball), soccer is the only one with substantial organized and televised domestic and international competitions. In other words, soccer mimics the men’s game better than any other sport.

And we all watch.

The presence of a determined (and robust) market destroys the hurdle that exists in many professions outside of women’s soccer. When girls choose to play soccer, it’s easy for them to look up and see the stars. All too often, that unobstructed view doesn’t exist elsewhere, and it’s even rarer sans objectification. Thus, using women’s soccer as a guide or parallel helps those who fall short of international recognition as much as those who have never kicked a ball.

By becoming a model for fairness and equality, U.S. Soccer can help right a fundamental wrong. This US Women’s National Team is the best to have ever existed in women’s soccer. It outperforms AND outdraws the USMNT. Yet the overwhelming reasons to treat and pay our women fairly is because it is the right thing to do, and it will show countless young boys, girls, women and men what equality truly looks like.

Given the absence of so many deeply embedded and shamefully outmoded, old-world rationalizations, if we can’t find a way to treat and compensate this team equally, we’re much further away from respecting women than we ever should be. In 2016. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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